Back when i was younger( i'm 30s now) so anywhere between 15 and 25... i remember i had a few flying dreams.
Back then i never knew or cared about remembering dreams and about lucid dreaming.
But do you think those were lucid dreams? I kinda remembering it felt great and like i had some control.
Well, the biggest thing about lucid dreaming is that you KNOW you're dreaming. This is normally synonymous with some form of control over your dream and clarity, but not by definition necessary. You'd have to make the call on that one. Personally, I'm nodding towards the lucid notion because I THINK people tend to remember lucid dreams far more vividly than normal dreams because the conscious part of their brain is able to form memories as well, but that's pure speculation.
Flying is pretty common in standard dreams and lucid dreams as it's simply FUN. And awesome. And exhilarating. Yep.
They may or may not have been. Did you realise that you were dreaming? Flying in itself doesn't mean you're lucid, but if you realised it was a dream and chose to fly, being aware of the fact that you were asleep and now in a world where it was possible to do such things, then yes. It is possible to have flying dreams without being lucid, though; I think most people do. It's also possible to feel present and have some degree of control over the dream without being lucid. Maybe when this is the case you're closer to lucidity than when you have no control at all and feel like you're just being swept along in oblivion, but unless you were aware that you were dreaming, it wasn't quite a lucid dream.
The dreams can still be vivid and enjoyable, though, at times even more so for believing it's actually real.
Having vivid flying dreams is NOT the same as having a lucid dream. I've done both (vivid flying dream and lucid dream, but not of flying). Some of the vivid flying dreams have been amazingly real, but I did not know I was dreaming and had no control. The waking clarity of an LD is a whole different league to a vivid dream (at least for me).
Curiously I used to be a pilot, and when I was flying in real life I hardly ever dreamed about flying. It was only before when I was younger, and now after I've given up flying as a pilot that I dream about flying.
I just wish I could have a long enough LD to go flying in my dreams!
A flying dream depends on how it came to be, in my opinion, there are three different ways that flying dreams (or other dreams where you perform crazy things) come about.
Lucid
Easy. You are lucid and choose to fly.
Aware
You have an idea that you can do whatever you want, not sure what though. :P Could be anything that makes you think that, but normally from heightened awareness in dreams.
Schema
You watched Peter Pan or something similar that had flying in it and the schema seeped into your dream.
A very high percentage of my non-lucids involve flying: I actual control where to go, and many times I completely ignore the plot once I start flying, but I still don't realize I'm dreaming.
If you had the tiniest idea that you might have been dreaming, those would be lucids indeed ^^